Pync
The
bell above the bookshop door rung, somewhat hurriedly, the hinges squealing louder
than usual and a cold and hard wind intruded for a brief moment, then the door
slammed shut with a loud bang.
Arthur
hadn’t expected his first customer of the week to be a wanted criminal… or to
be that attractive. The wanted posters hadn’t
done the strange wizard, who now leant against the door as if he were holding
back a storm, any justice. And he was
certainly hot. And certainly strange.
Though
strange was an understatement.
Arthur
only wore a plain brown suit, glasses, kept his hair in a neat and tidy
side-parting; he was drab and boring, unnoticeable by design. The intruder was the complete opposite. He didn’t wear wizard robes (they were
illegal anyway), but a short-sleeved denim jacket, open on a bare chest. He wore ripped jeans. His hair was a mess of blue spikes. And he was covered with illicit magical
artifacts. Magic rings in his ears. A gem on his eyebrow. His jacket was plastered with talismans,
badges, arranged with no apparent thought or pattern. His jeans were patched with pages from
ancient tomes. The man was haphazardly
cobbled together with an eclectic assortment of different enchantments.
“Do
you have a back passage?” said the wizard, leaning back against the door,
panicked. He was out of breath, but
smiled awkwardly. “I need a way
out.” He peered through the door’s
window.
“Uh…”
Arthur didn’t know what to say. Wizards
and magic were banned by the Corporation (they were the only ones allowed to
use magic), and if he was seen anywhere near this criminal, he’d draw the ire
of the local Inquisitor. He didn’t need
that attention, not when he was late with his fees. And not least because…
“Well?”
The colourful wizard raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Are you going to stop staring and answer
me?” He stepped forward, waving his
tattooed arms in the air; there were sigils, lines and circles etched along his
skin, moving along his forearms, reaching up his biceps and meeting in the
centre of his bare chest. It was a
really nice chest. “Hello?”
“Uhm…
yeah,” said Arthur, suddenly remembering that the man had a face. A handsome face, with piercings and eyeliner. He felt himself sigh like a lovestruck
teenager. “I do.”
“What?”
Arthur
mumbled some words; even he didn’t know what he said, but his cheeks flushed
hot, and he wanted nothing more than to hide behind his shop counter. Maybe he’d find some actual words there; this
was a bookstore after all.
“You’re
gonna need to speak up if we’re having a conversation,” added the stranger. “What’s your name?”
“Arthur,”
he mumbled under his breath.
“Huh? Did you say ‘Thor?’”
He
cleared his throat. “Arth-UR.”
“Arth-UR.” The wizard grinned; his smile was beautiful,
mischievous. “Do you mind if I call you ‘Thor’
instead? A nickname for my new friend.”
You
can call me whatever you want, thought Arthur.
“I… er… guess so,” he said from behind the counter.
“I’m
Pync, by the way.” The man’s name hadn’t
been mentioned on any of the wanted posters.
Pync stepped closer to the counter.
“I’m in a little bit of trouble,” he said, levity in his voice, almost
as if he was enjoying himself. “The
Corporation doesn’t like me very much.”
Arthur
didn’t say anything. He would be crazy
to speak out against the Corporation; they were everywhere, pretty much running
the state. He didn’t want their fiery
eye cast his way.
“You’re
not scared of them, are you?” teased Pync.
He placed his hands on the counter and leant toward Arthur, almost close
enough to kiss. He smelled of
bubble-gum. The man whispered, “they say
the Corporation is just one big squid monster.
They’ve got their tentacles in everything.”
“I don’t work for them,”
spluttered Arthur, just in case Pync got the wrong impression. “They don’t have anything to do with my shop.”
“I guessed that; they hate people
like…” Pync kept eye contact just a
little too long. “…us.”
Arthur stayed quiet, a pit
forming in his stomach, fear of being outed and his true magical self being revealed.
“Wizards.” The man took a step back. “They hate wizards.” He gestured to the shelves of books in the small
store, and then twirled through them, the talismans on his jacket jingling as
he spun. “Do you sell magic books?” He stopped near the end of the aisle and
looked back. “Any sorcerous tomes? Enchanted artifacts?”
“They’re illegal.”
Pync laughed. “A very political answer, Thor.” He approached the counter again. “That wasn’t a ‘no.’”
“No,” said Arthur.
“I see, I see.” He leant in close once more. “They haven’t given you much choice, have
they? I mean, are you happy with this
life they’ve forced on you? Hiding away
in this dinky little shop? Hiding who
you are. Paying them massive fees to
just exist! Surviving, but not
thriving.” Pync frowned. “Are you just going to roll over and take it? Live like this? Where’s your fight? Your anger?”
“I… I… don’t know.” Arthur didn’t know what else to say; he was
scared. He wanted nothing more than to
hide behind the counter right now, but Pync was too close to him; he could feel
the man’s breath on his face; he was sure Pync could feel his breath too. “This is all I’ve known.”
Pync jumped back. “I saw it,” he said. “There’s something there.”
“What?”
The wizard laughed. “Oh, nothing; I’m sure you’ll figure it out
on your own.” He looked over to the door
and back again. “I need to get going,”
he said. “Before they figure out where I
went. Now, about that back passage…”
***
It
was a couple of days later when the authorities, representatives of the
Corporation, turned up to question him about his unexpected visitor.
Arthur
had been worrying about this since he’d shown Pync his escape, and as someone
who always kept his head down, he felt exposed.
He’d barely slept.
He
was pacing behind the counter when the bell rang, and he thought for a moment
it would be his second customer of the week and relished the slight elation
that brought, but that feeling suddenly turned to dread as a tall, broad, black-robed
man ducked in through the doorway.
“Arthur
Thistleton,” commanded the tall and imposing Inquisitor, freezing Arthur in
place. The man bore the standard purple tentacled
echinoderm on the right side of this face that all Inquisitors adopted, a sign
of their obedience to the Corporation. “Mr
Thistleton, I’m here to ask you a few questions.” The man was flanked by two zombie sentinels, both
dolls in comparison to the large Inquisitor.
“My name is Major Payne.” The
green living corpses lurched forward with every step the big man took as he
approached.
Arthur
swallowed his fear, gulped it down into the void in his stomach, and hoped it went
unheard. He faced the new arrivals. “W… would you like a coffee?” he stumbled. “Or t… tea?
I might have some tinned brains in the back for your… er…”
“No,
Mr Thistleton.” He loomed towards the counter,
then loomed over Arthur. “This won’t
take long.” The tentaculiform he bore pulsed
with each word.
“My
fees are up to date,” he lied.
“That’s
not why we’re here.” He reached into his
black robes with a gloved hand and pulled out a piece of paper. He held it up to show Arthur. “Do you recognise this man?”
“I…
er…” The wanted poster still didn’t do
any justice; Pync was much better looking in real life, though it had his hair
and clothing correct. The wizard was
very distinctive. “I’m not sure,” said
Arthur.
“Really.” Major Payne frowned, his eyes narrowing. “Why don’t you take a closer look?” He gestured to his escort and the two zombies
staggered closer. “Study the whole
picture.”
Arthur
squinted at the drawing. “Oh yes, now I
see,” he said. “I think this is the
gentleman who came and browsed my books the other day.” He could feel himself sweating through his
shirt. “He didn’t buy anything.” The Corporation was in his shop and if he
said the wrong thing they’d... “I must
need new glasses.”
“I
see,” intoned the Inquisitor.
“I
didn’t.” Arthur giggled nervously. “See, that is… because of the glasses. Haha.”
“Do
you think this is funny, Mr Thistleton?”
“Of
course not!” His mouth was dry; he
needed a drink of water, but if he tried to leave to get some, he worried the
Inquisitor would do something horrible to him.
He was glued to the spot. “I’m
sorry, I… I…” he tried to build up some saliva in his mouth, lube up his words,
“I just wasn’t thinking.”
“Evidently.” Payne folded his arms across his
spectacularly broad chest. He frowned. “You weren’t thinking when you let a wanted
criminal, a deviant, into your shop either.”
“But
I…” The store seemed to shrink around
him, bookcases drawing in closer. The
black hole churned in his torso.
“You
also didn’t report him to the Corporation.”
Payne’s looming presence increased, filling the space, sucking away the
sunlight from outside.
“I
didn’t know who he was!” Arthur shrank
back. He became the smallest thing in
the store.
“This
criminal encourages a dangerous and seditious ideology,” boomed the Inquisitor. The man’s face hardened like stone as the
tentacled creature on his head pulsated.
“His very nature is perverse and corrupting. I believe you have fallen under his influence.”
“Influence?!” Arthur felt sick; his fingers tingled with
magic, and he shoved them behind his back.
Not now! “No, I…”
“You
have lied to me and laughed about it.”
Major Payne’s face cracked, parasite engorging as he spoke. “That is tantamount to lying to the
Corporation.” He slammed his fist on the
counter. “Not to mention your constant
disrespect and speaking back to me, out of turn. You’ve very clearly been influenced by” he
held up the wanted poster in a gripped gloved hand “an aberrant criminal dogma.”
Arthur
stayed silent; his voice had been dragged into the empty hole that was expanding
in his stomach. He was sweating, his
chest tight. He thought back to what
Pync had said, about his fight, his anger… he didn’t have any of that.
“Tell
me, Mr Thistleton,” said Payne. “Are you
a deviant?”
He
shook his head, his tongue dried to a husk in his mouth.
Major
Payne snapped his fingers at his green escort, and the two stepped forward in
an instant. “Search the shop,” ordered
the Inquisitor. His gaze didn’t move
from Arthur’s face the whole time; it was as if he were looking for any slight
twitch of an eye or a bead of sweat on his brow, something that would betray
the man’s guilt. “Look everywhere. I’m convinced this… suspect… is hiding
illicit material.” The plum echinoderm
on the side of the man’s head throbbed angrily.
“I think I know why you aided and abetted a known felon, Mr Thistleton. You’re just as much a degenerate as he is.”
Arthur
wanted nothing more than to run; he knew what they’d find. But he couldn’t move; his body was frozen in
place behind the counter, an empty pit in his stomach, his voice lost, his
heart pounding, and electricity dancing on the hands he’d hidden behind his
back.
“I
think,” grinned Payne, “that it would be best if you came in for questioning,
Mr Thistleton.” He held out his hand and
muttered an incantation.
The
last thing Arthur saw was a bright red glow, and everything went dark. He didn’t even feel his body hit the floor.
***
Arthur didn’t know how long
he’d been kept there; it’d felt like a bad dream. He’d known something bad was going to happen
as soon as he’d seen the Inquisitor walk into the shop. No.
He’d known since Pync had arrived.
There was no way the universe was going to drop a hot guy on his lap
without consequences. He tried to
breath, but the air was stuffy and damp.
There was a constant pressure around his neck. And it was dark. Suffocating emptiness. The smell of raw flesh. His head was warm, but his body felt cold. There was a feeling of weightlessness, like
he was hanging in the air. Alone.
And then he heard voices,
distant, getting closer. Muffled.
He didn’t know what they were
saying.
The
pressure on his neck loosened, and he sucked cold air into his lungs like it
was his first time breathing. Desperate
gasps. Hands caught him as he dropped,
gravity returning, and he was lowered onto the hard ground, then leant against
a wall.
“Thor,”
called a familiar voice.
Light
crept in through the corners of his eyes.
“Leave
him,” growled another voice.
“Get
bent.” The familiar voice again. “Breathe.
You’re okay.”
A
mess of blue, surrounding a known and pretty face, unblurred as his eyes
creaked open.
“Pync?”
mumbled Arthur. There were other people
behind the man, shadowy figures he couldn’t quite make out. Blobs of colour in a grey room. He heard faint noises, far off, but he
couldn’t make them out yet; voices shouting, alarms.
“Here,
drink this.”
A
viscous liquid breached his dry lips, bitter, but he swallowed it anyway. It warmed his chest, the warmth spreading
from his torso and outwards, up and down his arms, waking every cell in his
body. Memories snuck up, dreams of wet
and purple tentacles smothering him, squeezing.
Nightmares of hanging.
His
world suddenly lucidified. Whatever had
been in that drink had kicked his consciousness into focus. Pync, his handsome saviour, had saved him
from some… thing.
Arthur
looked up. A meaty mass of loose
tentacles hung flaccid and limp from a hole in the ceiling of the small grey
room. His hand instinctively went to his
neck. Had he been…?
“I
stunned it,” said Pync. “You were the
last one; everyone else has already escaped.
They didn’t want to come with us.”
“Huh?”
“The
Corporation took you,” he continued. “To
steal your knowledge, your magic. We set
the others free, then we found you.” He
smiled awkwardly. “I guess I owed you
one; it’s sorta my fault you’re here.”
“What
is it?” Arthur pointed above his head;
he hadn’t really understood what Pync had been talking about.
“The
CEO of the Corporation. Or part of it.” The wizard held out a hand, a bare arm, to
help Arthur to his feet. “It was
squeezing you dry. Like a lemon. Didn’t I tell you it was a tentacle monster?”
“I thought
you were being metaphorical! Facetious!” Arthur wobbled on his toes, a little unsteady. “I can’t believe…”
“Believe
it.” Pync grinned, a roguish glint in
his eyes. “I’m going to take it down,
the Corporation, everything. Like I told
you before, I don’t just want to survive; I want to thrive!” His grin grew and Arthur was even more
attracted to the man than before.
“Everyone deserves to thrive, right?
To live free. Do you want to live,
Thor?”
Arthur
nodded meekly.
Pync
leaned a little closer, then jabbed Arthur in his chest. “Then where’s your fire?” he demanded. “After what they’ve done to you. After everything. Are you going to just let the Corporation
stomp all over you for the rest of your days?
Hide away?” He threw his arms in
the air. “The whole freaking system is a
scam! Where’s your anger?”
“I…
I… don’t know.”
The
wizard stood back, the talismans on his denim jacket chiming, his expression loosened. “It’s up to you what you do now.”
Arthur
didn’t know, he really didn’t know. Pync
was right about his fire; he wanted to get angry, knew he should be angry, but
there was just nothing there except a vacuous gulf in his gut. And what could he do about anything
anyway? He wasn’t like Pync. He’d never had any fight in him. He’d just accepted things as they were and
kept his head down.
“Oi!” Arthur had forgotten about the other people he’d
seen when he’d come to. “I said leave
him,” called another man dressed similarly to Pync, though he had an orange
mohawk instead of blue spikes. He was
stood in the doorway of the small drab room.
“We don’t need a normie coming with us.”
There were four others just outside in the hall, a rainbow of hairstyles
and clothes, a haphazard mix of differences, but this somehow brought them
together; they were like the amulets and charms on Pync’s jacket, all different
but together anyway. “He’s only going to
slow us down.”
“Shut
it, Pigyn!”
“But
you said you’d only be quick and…”
“Give
me a minute,” growled Pync at the interrupter.
Was that his boyfriend? Husband? They bickered like a couple. The wizard turned back to Arthur. “Thor,” he said. “This is the Corporation headquarters. I said it’s your choice, but you could help
us.” He frowned. “Or you can leave.”
“What
good am I?” muttered Arthur.
Suddenly,
Pync grabbed him by the shoulders. “What
good are you?! Fight back! Fight with us. Find your rage. Your wrath!
Do you want to stay oppressed? Subjugated. Do you want to continue lying to yourself
about who you are?”
“It…
it is what is.”
Pync
sighed and took a step back. “Stay or
go.” He shrugged. “Your choice.
But this is your fight too, even if you don’t know it. We fight for us.” He gestured to the small group of mismatched
wizards as he walked backwards to the doorway.
“And for you. For everyone, even
if they don’t know it.” He tapped his
nose and pointed at him. “It’s up to you
what you do now.”
“I
don’t know,” said Arthur. He couldn’t
move, though his hands were shaking, his heart vibrating. “I really don’t know what I should do.” The empty well in his stomach pulled at him. “Stay or go with you.”
“That’s
all I can offer.” Pync said as he
continued to the door. Was he about to
lose his crush forever? “Take it or
leave it. Stay or go.”
“Yeah,
stay,” laughed the wizard, Pigyn, who’d spoken up earlier. He was holding a baseball bat carved with
runes, and he swung it in the air playfully.
“You’ll only slow us down.”
“They’re
coming,” said another of the wizards. “We
gotta move.”
Arthur
fell back against the wall; the reality of it against his spine felt safe.
“Thor,”
said Pync, “I can’t wait for you to make up your mind; there’s too much at
stake.” He smiled as he reached his
companions, though there was a sadness behind his eyes. “Take the first right out of the door to
leave. And take care, look after
yourself, okay?”
And
they left.
He left.
Arthur
was alone with only the dead tentacles hanging over his head for company. He could hear fighting in the distance,
shouting, the fizz and bang of magic. Manic
laughter, as if the strange wizards were taking joy in what they were doing. Arthur didn’t feel anything, except the
feeling of the grey walls closing in, dragged by the black hole inside his body. His emotions were lost to him.
His
heart was buzzing in his ears, though it felt as though the organ had become
stuck in his throat, the contents of his empty stomach pushing up against
it. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to run. His head was hot, hands cold. He could barely breathe.
Arthur
threw up, retched out air, spat bile.
He
wanted to cry, but the tears would not come.
It was as if every feeling had been sucked into the void that was
growing bigger and bigger within his torso.
He
tried to slow his breathing, slow his heart; he sucked in the rank air through
his nose, whistled it out between his lips.
Again, and again. The scent of
the dead tentacle mingled with the perfume of his vomit. He had to calm down, shrink the hole within
his gut. He kept breathing.
The
ruckus continued outside, though it grew fainter.
Arthur
really was alone.
He
looked up at the purple appendages above him; the limp limbs swayed slightly,
ominously.
Perhaps
Pync was right to fight it, fight the Corporation, the system.
He’d
been freed from the tentacle monster, but was he really free?
Had he ever been?
He
wished he could get angry. He didn’t
want to be alone.
Arthur
took a deep breath and ran out into the hall.
To
his right, was the exit. Escape. The route back to his old life, or something
like it was. He couldn’t go back to the
shop.
To
his left… uncertainty. But Pync was
there. Light flashed through a doorway
at the end of the hall; they were still fighting whatever was beyond, taking on
the Corporation. He could hear them.
Arthur
looked over to the exit once more, swallowed down his heart, and ran to the
left, ignoring the pit in his belly.
***
“Thor!” Pync greeted him with a big grin. “I knew you’d come through!” He, along with three others, were lobbing
fireballs at some zombie sentinels who were blocking a stairway. The undead burned away like paper, but for
every defeated, another took its place almost immediately. Pync turned his attention back to the fight,
and Arthur felt a little inadequate.
Maybe he’d made a mistake.
“Hey,
don’t just stand there.” This new voice
was Pigyn; he was at the opposite end of the hall with another wizard. He sighed when Arthur didn’t reply. “Useless.”
The pair were reinforcing a doorway using thick layers of ice; Arthur assumed
that sentinels lay on the other side.
“Just what are you good for?”
Arthur
wondered the same thing. He stood there
looking up and down the corridor; there were other doors, open and gloomy,
where he imagined other people like him had been held. Why hadn’t they stayed to fight? Was it just him and these wizards?
“I
asked you a question, buddy,” shouted Pigyn.
“Just what are you good for?”
“I’m…
er… a wizard,” he said. It felt good to
say it out loud. “I’m a wizard,” he
repeated, but this time with newfound pride.
He glared at the man. “Lightning
is my speciality.” Arthur cricked his
fingers, then began to clench his fists in and out; he was building up a charge. Sparks danced over his hands. Maybe he could do this, maybe he could fight. He shuffled toward Pync, aware of Pigyn’s eyes
boring a hole into his back, aware of the fear still gripping his stomach, but
moving anyway. Maybe Arthur wasn’t so
useless after all. Maybe he’d find his
fire, his anger, just by fighting back.
Maybe. Power crackled on his
fingertips, his skin tingled, and he felt the energy reach a tipping point,
ready to go. “Hey Pync,” he muttered. And then louder. “Hey Pync!
Stand aside.”
Arthur
threw his hands up… and nothing happened.
Nothing
happened.
All
the lightning, the electricity, the magic, had been sucked up by the void in
his belly. He was empty. He’d failed.
He
heard Pigyn laugh behind him. “I told
you! Just what are you good for?”
He
could feel all eyes on him, the group of haphazard wizards peering into his
soul and judging him. He’d let Pync
down. He shouldn’t have come here. He should’ve run. He felt that deep hole within him consume his
pride. He wasn’t like them, the wizards. He was useless. He didn’t have their courage, their fight. He couldn’t even use his magic. What could he do?
And
then, Pync smiled at him with his beautiful smile, exuding a trust in Arthur
that Arthur didn’t have in himself, and mouthed the word, “Fight,” before
turning his attention back to the zombie sentinels.
Fight?
Fight.
Something
ignited in the pit of his torso; it was small, at first, but started to grow. It filled Arthur, bubbling through his chest and
along his limbs. His magic sparked back
within his grasp, charging every cell in his body, building, growing. The emptiness inside him was getting hot. Was that anger he felt? The anger he’d been missing? Maybe.
He was still scared, his heart was still pounding hard, his breath
short, but a little voice at the back of his mind told him he didn’t care. He just wanted to…
And
then everything went wrong.
An
explosion of ice and wood slammed into his back. He heard someone scream over the whoosh and
bang of the eruption, maybe Pigyn, and Arthur was flung to the floor. His body ricocheted along the hard ground,
new bruises and cuts crying out. His
ears rung, a high pitch getting higher and higher until he heard nothing at all. And then there was only silence and pain. The air reeked of charcoal and magic. Arthur’s head rested on its side, and he could
see Pigyn sprawled unconscious against the far wall surrounded by shards of ice
and splinters of wood. He didn’t know
where the other wizard was, but he suspected she was in a similar state to
Pigyn.
Whatever
creature or creatures the pair had been holding back with their wall of ice,
had now breached the hall. Arthur heard
a pair of heavy footsteps crunch and thump.
“Mr
Thistleton,” said a familiar voice. He
could almost hear the purple parasite pulsating as the man spoke. “I should’ve known you’d be behind this
deviancy.”
Arthur
lifted himself up, his back blood-wet and hurting, his bones aching, and he
stood to face the Inquisitor.
“All
this time,” said Major Payne, “I was convinced that you’d been influenced by
the criminals, but…” The broad man
shrugged as he approached. “You’re the
real influence. It was you all along.”
“No,
I…” Arthur took stock of the
situation. Pigyn and the other wizard,
who he could now see was nursing a broken arm behind the Inquisitor, were both
out of action. Pync was busy, along with
the three other wizards, fighting off the sentinels on the stairs. Arthur was alone. “So what if I am?” he snapped; his mouth had
run away from him, despite the void in his stomach, the fear. “Does it really matter?”
“No.” Payne, in a sudden rush of magical speed, rushed
forward and grabbed Arthur by the throat with his gloved fists. “You’re all perverts, degenerates. A plague.”
He
couldn’t reply, choked harder as he was lifted from the floor. He could barely breathe. His body flailed. He was alone against this large monster, and he
was losing. Had lost. He was sweating, though he was cold with fear. He tried to reach for his magic; it was still
distant and depleted, lost deep within him, along with the fire that had
ignited for a brief moment before the explosion.
Major
Payne grinned, and the tentaculiform on his face engorged and throbbed.
Arthur’s
vision started to black out around the edges, the world growing dark and blurry. Payne’s smirk was soon all he could see. The iron grip on his neck tightened and his
body fell limp.
It
was over. This was the end.
For
moment he thought he heard Pync’s voice.
It was strained and stifled.
Quiet. The voice spoke
again. One breathless word. But it wasn’t Pync that spoke; it was his own
voice. His.
“Fight.”
Arthur
thrust deep into the dark pit of fear within his gut, reaching deeper and
deeper, further and further into his soul.
He was going to fight. There was
a spark, a small fire, right at its centre.
He seized it. Held it tight. He was sick of being meek. Apathetic.
Letting things just… happen. He
didn’t want to hide who he was anymore.
He’d been so caught up in pretending it was all okay, he’d convinced
himself it was. It wasn’t! Arthur had drifted through life, letting
things go over his head. Plodded along. Survived.
He’d let the Corporation squeeze his life into nothing but a mediocre
grey. He’d accepted it. He was part of the system. No longer.
Pync had shown him another world, something outside of the system, and they
were fighting for something better. They
weren’t meek or apathetic. They
thrived. Arthur wanted to thrive. He wanted to fight. The fire burst within him, spreading,
growing. He was angry! Pync and his friends were fighting back. And while they’d been fighting, what had he
been doing? Hiding in that shop? He’d given up before he’d even tried. Pync was right, and Arthur had found it now,
his fire. He couldn’t lose what he’d
found, or the people who’d found him. He
couldn’t lose Pync.
Rage
saturated his body, electricity crackled along his skin. He felt powerful for the first time in his
life.
He realised
he was grinning at the Inquisitor.
And
he let him have it. All his pent-up anger. His wrath.
It surged up from the emptiness in his stomach, massaged his thrumming
heart, filled his lungs. Fed his
magic. Lightning discharged from every
pore. Payne’s grip loosened, and Arthur
could breathe again! It energized him. He burned with righteous power. Arthur kicked out. Kicked again, trying to shake himself loose
with a body that was no longer choked out, no longer limp and useless. Electricity zapped out from his body to his
captor’s, and the Inquisitor gritted his teeth, fighting against the onslaught. Arthur pummelled a storm into the man, threw
bolt after bolt into the large fleshy bulk.
Payne flinched, then screamed.
And
Arthur was released. He dropped down
from the man’s grip, catching his balance on his feet, just as the Inquisitor
collapsed to the ground, singed and unconscious. The parasite on the man’s face stretched out
a limb as if reaching for something, then slid from its place and flopped onto
the floor. Its five tentacles spread
wide before curling and shrivelling like the legs of a dead spider.
But
it wasn’t over yet.
Arthur
turned his wrath to the zombie sentinels.
“Pync, move!” He threw his hands up
and forward, directing the powerful lightning into the horde, just as Pync and
his two companions ducked out of the way. Electricity coursed through the air, spitting
plasma. It sparked and hooked, riding
zigzags through the army of zombies on the stairs, hitting and burning up every
sentinel into dust, taking them all out in a surge of screeching bolts.
The
air stank of sulphur and ozone, sweet and pungent, mixed with the meaty stench
of burnt flesh.
Only
wizards and silence remained.
Arthur
dropped to his hands and knees, magic depleted, but still filled with wrath.
“Thor! I’m impressed!” Pync laughed as he rushed forward and helped
Arthur from the floor, holding him steady with his arm wrapped around his waist. “You found it, then? That fire,” he said. “I knew you would; I saw it in you when we
first met.”
Arthur
nodded. He could feel Pync’s warmth
against his body as he carried him to the steps to sit down; it felt nice. He felt nice.
Really nice. It quelled his anger
a little as they sat, and he allowed the wrath to dip below the surface ready
to return at any moment. He watched as the
other three wizards attended to Pigyn and his companion, and Arthur wondered
why Pync had come straight to him and not Pigyn. He suddenly realised the other man was still
holding him. He didn’t want him to let
go, but he needed to know the answer to something. “Pync,” enquired Arthur, “you don’t seem too
worried about your husband.”
“Husband?”
“Boyfriend,
then?” He gestured to the injured man;
he was still out cold, but magic was being applied to his wounds. “Or is he your partner?”
Pync
guffawed. “Pigyn?! No chance!”
He dropped his blue head against Arthur’s shoulder. “Besides he’s married to a wonderful bearish
man who knows how to handle his snark.
I’ve got no patience for it.”
Arthur’s
shoulders relaxed. He wanted to sit here
with Pync all day, but he knew his wrath would not be sated quite yet, not
until he thrived, until everyone could thrive.
“What next?” he asked.
“We’re
going to take down the CEO,” said Pync.
“And
then?”
“We’ll
smash the whole damn system, Thor.” He looked
up at Arthur with a mischievous smirk. “Are
you with me? With us?”
Arthur
grinned. “I want to smash the whole damn
system.”
The End.
********************
